Field emission electron sources, often referred to as field emission materials or field emitters, can be used in a variety of electronic applications, e.g., vacuum electronic devices, flat panel computer and television displays, emission gate amplifiers, and klystrons and in lighting.
Display screens are used in a wide variety of applications such as home and commercial televisions, laptop and desktop computers and indoor and outdoor advertising and information presentations. Flat panel displays are only a few inches thick in contrast to the deep cathode ray tube monitors found on most televisions and desktop computers. Flat panel displays are a necessity for laptop computers, but also provide advantages in weight and size for many of the other applications. Currently, laptop computer flat panel displays use liquid crystals which can be switched from a transparent state to an opaque one by the application of small electrical signals. It is difficult to reliably produce these displays in sizes larger than that suitable for laptop computers.
Plasma displays have been proposed as an alternative to liquid crystal displays. A plasma display uses tiny cells of electrically charged gases to produce an image and requires relatively large electrical power to operate.
Flat panel displays having a cathode using a field emission electron source, i.e., a field emission material or field emitter, and a phosphor capable of emitting light upon bombardment by electrons emitted by the field emitter have been proposed. Such displays have the potential for providing the visual display advantages of the conventional cathode ray tube and the depth, weight and power consumption advantages of the other flat panel displays. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,857,799 and 5,015,912 disclose matrix-addressed flat panel displays using micro-tip cathodes constructed of tungsten, molybdenum or silicon. WO 94-15352, WO 94-15350 and WO 94-28571 disclose flat panel displays wherein the cathodes have relatively flat emission surfaces.
However, in view of the above, there is a need for field emitter cathode backplate structures for panel displays that have control gate electrodes in proximity to the field emitter and that can be reliably produced in a large size and in quantity with the necessary precision required. Other objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon reference to the attached drawings and to the detailed description of the invention which hereinafter follows.